Friday, January 27, 2006

Nothing has changed...equilibrium has settled upon me once again-a 2:1 ratio of salt and pepperecstasy and angstaffirmation and masochism, etc.And you?

There doesn’t seem to be any flooding here.No roiling crest spilling over the banks.Brine.That’s what they call a salty solution of some noxious liquidfound in back waters, basements, and tidal flats...Are they evacuating your neighborhood?

Holding a heart shaped chain letter and pondering St. Valentine,bless his holy name,I was surprised to feel the Holy Ghost come upon me...and I got the Power.If St. Patrick wouldn’t have vanquished all the snakesI could have demonstrated my faith.But alas, no serpents,save the one wrapped around my heartwho keeps force feeding me apple sauce.I was resigned to speaking in tongues-forked ones at that.I know, my diction.

Now the sun is shiningbut I’ve been in this tunnel so long it hurts-like a bright light glintingoff a gin bottle in the ditch.But I’ll be okcause I asked for automatic polarizing glassesfrom the Easter Bunnyand the government said if I was good and ate my apple sauceI would get them under the Easter-egg tree.I’m trying really hard.Cross your fingers and say a prayer for me.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

It was the darkest night of the yearor the longest at leastand yet the fullest moon in one hundred.I was privately searching for my very own solsticeamongst the star bright human lightwhen he shattered my crystal fantasy.

He stopped suddenly and stooped,reached a gloved hand downgingerly plucking the slender bluetreasure from the snow, hardly noticeable.

“It’s an ‘H’” he said, rather sheepishly, “they’re softer...”while displaying it at arms length, point upwith irresistible boyish triumph.I was relieved that at least one of ushad discovered millennial meaning.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

She, coveredin Gotham City blackpink under, yellow hair pulled backintent upon number 11A 1948(black white and gray)and I, today the cadbusyfomenting a first forayuntil she exited, without the blackhailedand walked away.

An earlier version of this poem appeared in the "HazMat Review," Vol. 4, Issue 1 Fall/Winter 1999.

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Welcome to "When I Wax"-- a place to escape the pedants and wax poetic, or even wax artistic.

The mythologist Joseph Campbell was asked by an interviewer how a regular person could preserve his sense of the mythic when so many feel too besieged by the claims of every day living. He said, "You must have a place to which you can go, in your heart, in your mind, or your house, almost every day, where you do not know what you owe anyone or what anyone owes you. You must have a place you can go to where you do not know what your work is or who you work for, where you do not know who you are married to or who your children are."

When I Wax is such a place for me. Blogging drafts of poetry and other sundries is like practice fly-casting on the front lawn... it may look silly, but it's effective...

Thank you

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
George Gordon ByronThe Destruction of Sennacherib